• Tweet
• Sharebar

• Tweet

Learn 7 Essential Guitar Chords for Beginners

We have teamed up with our friend Nate Savage of the Beginner Guitar System to bring you a series of guitar chord lesson that will help you get started fast.

When first learning guitar chords the most important thing is to ensure you’re using good technique. The #1 issue I’ve seen with beginners who are struggling is usually due to a flaw in their technique.

So what technique am I talking about? When you learn guitar chords it’s important that you use only the tips of your fingers to press down on the strings (watch the above video for more explanation). What happens when you use the fleshy part of your finger is you tend to touch more then just the string you need to. This causes the other strings to sound muffled because you’re “blunting” them with your finger.

Open Chords

This learn guitar chords lesson teaches you the 7 essential beginner guitar chords you should know. They are all in the open position. What does open position mean? It means they are played starting at the first fret right next to the nut and at least one open string is played when you strum them.

Take the time to watch the video above a couple of times through and then grab your own guitar and give it a try, after all learning guitar chords is more about doing then watching.

Tips to Help you Get it Right

Here’s just a quick list of tips to help you avoid frustration as you learn guitar chords.

1.) Practice making the shape of the chord first and use just the tips of your fingers. Don’t worry about strumming yet.

2.) Once you can comfortably make the shape practice taking your fingers off the guitar neck, place them back in the proper chord shape and press hard. Hold it for a count of 5 and then release and repeat. This will help you build muscle memory for that chord shape.

3.) Only add strumming to your beginner guitar chord practice when you feel comfortable with the shape. Don’t get discourage if you blunt some strings at first, just keep practicing it will come.

4.) Don’t be in a rush to strum and switch between chords. Take the time to ensure you can play each of these 7 beginner guitar chords correctly first.

Learning guitar chords is a process, and if you try to do thing too quickly what can happen is you get frustrated. Once you’ve completed this you may want to check out the bar chords and power chords pages.

If you’re ready to get serious about learning the guitar you should check out the best beginner guitar course online, Nate’s Beginner Guitar System.